Teachers working together to improve student achievement in reading and writing

January 03, 2008

Identity

Teaching Kids to Read is Easier If They’re Already Readers

In an era of testing and standards, it’s easy to develop the mindset that kids aren’t readers until they’ve passed a test that says they are. But I’ve found that kids do better when I can convince them that their readers the minute they step into the classroom—even during their very first days of school.

I love working with kindergarteners at the beginning of the year.
Thinking about a complicated skill like reading, and trying to figure
out where to start, is exactly the kind of teaching puzzle I thrive on.

I want to start right away with an authentic reading activity. So
before the kids arrive, I write a letter on the board. Not a letter of
the alphabet, a real letter, from me to the kids, about how I excited I
am to be working with them.

If I asked the kids at this moment whether they could read, most would
probably say “no” and those that said “yes” probably couldn’t tell me
what reading was or how they know they can do it. But in five minutes,
after we’ve read this letter together, I’m going to pronounce all of
them readers, and I really do expect them to believe me.

I gather the kids up close to the board and we began looking at what
I’ve written. We start by asking questions: What is it? Who wrote it?
Who is it for? What does the first word say? And so on. What amazes and
delights me is that a class of kids who say they can’t read will almost
always be able to figure out the following things without too much help
from me:

It’s a letter.

It has the date at the top.

The first word is “Dear”.

The next word is “Kids”.

The first word of the body is “I”.

The letter is from me.

The letter is short and written in words we can easily figure out. It
usually starts out like this: “Dear Kids, I am so happy to see you
today.” It’s maybe two or three sentences long at most, and it ends
with the highly predictable closing, “Sincerely, Mr. Peha.”

The form is easily recognizable. The vocabulary is familiar. And it’s
short enough to memorize. With just a little work, the kids can read it
together from beginning to end with me pointing at the words as they go
by. Admittedly, most kids are memorizing words and not decoding them.
But everyone participates and, best of all, everyone has a successful
experience of reading something real that is meaningful and relevant to
their lives.

At the end of the activity, I tell them they’re all readers. I want
them to go home and tell their parents they’re readers, too. I don’t
want them to have to wait until they’ve learned enough letters or
reached a certain level of book. I want them to know they’re readers
now because they’ve been engaged in the process of getting meaning from
text regardless of how they got that meaning.

The thing about learning is that it’s all in our heads. I want the kids
I work with to know that they are readers from the first moment we go
to work. Can they read a lot during the first week of kindergarten? No.
But they can read something. And as soon as that happens, I want them
to know they’re part of the literate world.

Many kids have anxiety around reading. They think they can’t do it and
they worry that they never will. They think of themselves as
non-readers from the start and they wait for us to confirm their
official status with texts that are above their reading level,
comprehension questions they don’t understand, and complex assessments
that confirm their worst fears about what they don’t know and can’t do.
I like to start with what they do know and can do. Why not have them
experience some level of reading success on the first day of school?
Why not consider kids readers based on the fact that they’re engaged in
the process? And why not make sure they consider themselves readers,
too?

At issue here is identity, an important concept that often gets lost
when we think of teaching as merely a set of objectives, skills,
standards, or benchmarks. Identity has a profound impact on learning,
especially learning to read. Kids who think of themselves as readers
pay attention to text and to reading instruction differently than kids
who think they are not readers. In my experience, kids who see
themselves as readers learn to read faster and better than those who
don’t. Here’s what I’ve noticed about why that’s true:

Kids who think they are readers have higher expectations of
themselves. If kids are readers, they expect to be able to read. It’s
not something that is foreign to them or confusing or scary. Reading is
natural and normal, even if it’s sometimes hard.

Kids who think they are readers expect text to make sense. When
readers see text, they expect to be able to understand it. When they
can’t, they work to figure it out. The expectation that text makes
sense helps them reject incorrect assumptions about the ways letters
make words and words convey ideas.

Kids who think they are readers read more. Kids who are readers see
reading opportunities all around them. They read signs, they read
packaging, they read text on TV. They’re constantly processing text
because text is everywhere to be processed and because processing text
is what readers do.

Kids who think they are readers have better attitudes about reading.
In the pecking order of school, readers have significantly higher
status than non-readers. Since reading is the first “r” and an intense
focus of the first years of school, kids who think they are readers
have better attitudes about themselves as learners and about learning
in general.

Kids who think they are readers take bigger risks and assume more
challenges. Readers like to show off their skills. There are always
bigger words and harder books to tackle, and readers volunteer readily
for the chance to master them.

Kids who think they are readers enjoy reading more. Kids know that
adults think reading is important and that being a reader is good. Kids
who see themselves as readers like to read because it makes them feel
good whether they’re good at it or not.

A kid’s sense of identity with regard to reading isn’t just something I
think about when I work with kindergarteners. By 3rd or 4th grade,
students who see themselves as non-readers may already be years behind,
so convincing them that they are readers is a tougher job. Even the
lowest kids at this age can easily read a simple letter I might write
for them on the board. And they’re no longer so willing to believe me
when I tell them they can read—even if they really can. So, for kids at
this age, I use a different reader’s identity activity.

This is a listing activity that focuses on reading behaviors. Using myself as a model, I make a list for the kids like this:

As a reader, I...

Almost always have a book I’m reading.

Read at night before I fall asleep.

Read whenever I’m stuck on an airplane or other long trip.

Read several magazines each month.

Read novels.

Read more non-fiction than fiction.

Read several blogs and websites on a regular basis.

Read parts of two newspapers each week.

Read to learn new things and to add skills.

Re-read something if it doesn’t make sense to me.

Read to solve important problems in my life.

Read to stay safe and to follow the law.

Read text on TV.

Notice examples of good writing when I read it.

Read text on my cell phone and other hand-held devices.

Read signs and other environmental print.

Read my own writing.

Talk with other readers about my reading.

Have favorite authors, favorite genres, and favorite forms.

Etc....

The list goes on and on. As the kids catch on to what I’m doing, they
remind me of other ways I express myself as a reader. Sometimes we come
up with 30-40 things. When my list gets that detailed, it’s a pretty
good description of my identity as a reader. That’s when I turn it over
to the kids and ask them to make their own lists.

In ten years of doing this activity, I’ve never had a kid with a blank
list, or even a really short one. Even kids who would describe
themselves as non-readers engage in many reading behaviors on a regular
basis.

In closing this activity, I point out that anyone with anything on
their list is a reader, and that my goal is for everyone to regularly
add new reading behaviors to their lists all year long based on things
they learn from me. I tell them that this list is their reader’s
fingerprint, and that as we work more together, that fingerprint will
become bolder and more detailed. I do this activity—and will keep doing
it all year long—to help everyone become more conscious of the fact
that they are all readers regardless of their level of ability or
degree of interest.

When I work with older kids, especially high schoolers, I like to look
at reader’s identity more the way adult readers do. Adults think of
themselves as readers in terms of what they read in the past and what
they read on a regular basis. When I model this activity, I refer to it
as my reading career and I tell kids that making lists of what I read
is like creating my reading resume.

I often start the reading resume activity by asking kids what they read
during the previous year. Many will say they didn’t read anything but
we all know they did. If nothing else, most of them at least glanced at
the required readings from school. What I’m most interested in finding
out is whether or not kids did any reading on their own. In Language
Arts, for example, did anyone read novels they chose themselves? Or
maybe someone read something on their own for a research project. Did
anyone read anything outside of school? Who reads text on the Internet?
Etc. Because independent reading is the most common reading adults do,
and the most common reading kids will do with me, that’s what I want to
learn the most about.

As with the previous activity, where kids write down their reading
behaviors, I will want kids to update their reading resumes from time
to time as we go through the year. Essentially, this activity will be
their final project at the end of each grading period. Like any resume,
their reading resume will tell the person reviewing them about their
qualifications. In this case, their resume is proof they show me and
their parents of their abilities as readers.

No test will directly measure a student’s reading identity. Nor will
the concept of identity show up in any list of state learning
standards. But I can think of few things that are stronger predictors
of a student’s ability to learn to read. The key to helping kids claim
their identities as readers is self-assessment. Each of the reading
identity activities I use is a self-assessment activity. And throughout
the year, self-assessment will be the most common form of assessment we
engage in.

While I want kids to take formal testing seriously and to do as well as
they can, I don’t want them to define themselves by it. Reading tests
vary significantly from the authentic task they are designed to measure
and some kids may perform poorly for a variety of reasons only
indirectly related to their reading ability.

I’m also aware that kids do a ton of reading outside of Language Arts
class. They’re really reading all day long, and ideally I’d like them
to be using the same strategies they learn from me whether they’re
reading with me or not. Though I can’t prove it, I’ve always had the
feeling that kids who see themselves as non-readers or as poor readers
shut down when they’re asked to read in many other school and real-life
reading situations. If I can help them change this behavior by helping
them take ownership of their reader’s identity, I believe I can do more
for them than I can through any skill I help them develop or any
strategy I teach.